Galdima Church Dedication

Our primary purpose for going to Bali was to attend the dedication of a new church at Galadima.This church was just four mud block walls when I visited it in 2010. The Pastors' Wives Association had visited in 2009 and told the people of the village that if they built a church the wives would pay to have a roof constructed. The roof was finished in 2010 and struck by lightning in 2011 and repaired. Now it 2013 the church has had the mud blocks covered with concrete, the floor finished, pews and an altar built. It is time for a dedication. Before we left I decided to take a quick picture. The local District pastor Rev. Joshua Mamman is in the back. He did not ride there. He moved into the back seat with his wife, Pastor Buduku and his wife. This is not the first or last time we will have 4 in the back seat. We left a little after 8 AM with a quick stop for diesel and another for a bag of cool water to put in my cooler.

For the few of my readers who have been to Bali. You probably crossed the old bridge on the left. There is now a wide two lane bridge.

Pastor Bunduku had been to Galadima earlier in the week to check on the preparations. When he was there he was told that a woman had been saying crazy things and the villagers had said she had evil spirits. So they bound her and tied her to a tree and left her to die. Pastor Bunduku went to her and gave her water then asked where her husband was and told someone to bring him. He talked to the husband who said she was sick and started talking crazy. He does not want a crazy wife. Pastor Bunduku convinced the husband to let him take her to a hospital. We do not know what her current condition is now. But it is much better than being tied to a tree.


 When we arrived the church as in the final stages of being prepared for the dedication ceremony. The Pastors' Wives had arrived on Saturday in two vans and a truck. Drummers and a trumpet player had walked the 6 kilometers from Garba Chede. The ceremony starts with a procession from center of the village to the church, lead by the drummers. The women were lined up in one line and would sing the whole way while the drummers drummed a different tune. The other line was other people, church members, guests and villagers. At the end were the local Evangelist, Catechist and finally the Pastors.

I stood to the side and shoot a video as the procession went by. By the time the end of the pastors had passed the front was more than half way to the church. I had to run through fields to get back in front of the procession to shoot a video of them arriving at the church.




They went to the front of the church where they said a prayer and then Pastor Bunduku read the dedication ceremony in Hausa.




Then the Catechist that started the church unlocked the door while something else was read. I did not have an interpreter as I was busy taking pictures.


After the door was unlocked another verse was read and then I heard my name called at and realized I was suppose to cut the ribbon. After the ribbon was cut we filled the church to overflowing.



I found a good seat by a window where the wind was blowing in so I could stay a little cool. Soon all the windows were blocked by people outside looking in.

 I cannot remember all the ceremony. They blessed the Baptismal / Offering Stand and then the Pulpit (which was designed for a tall person). After the pulpit was blessed they called for me to cut the pink  ribbon in front of the Altar. I quickly said the Pastors' Wives leader should cut this ribbon for they had provided the roof over our heads. She quickly moved to the front and cut the ribbon before anyone could protest and before I could get in a position to take the picture.

 They blessed the Altar and the church service was started. The Church Elder of the month read the announcements and said that last week they had 46 people in attendance and they collected 700 Naira in offerings.

 At the part of the service where they ask for guest they introduced me and told the church that one thing that the children of Mount Calvary had done was to buy a donkey for the Catechist to use. The donkey decided to break every pot in their compound. It must have had been forced to carry heavy pots before and did not want to do it again. I was asked to greet the congregation. I told them that I was bringing greetings from America and from Mount Calvary Lutheran Church in Excelsior, Minnesota. Explained that Mount Calvary has been working with Jimeta Cathedral for the last 20 years starting churches like Galadima in Taraba State. I told them that I was happy to be part of the dedication and that I will take part of the yellow ribbon I cut and the pink ribbon the Pastors' Wives had cut back to Mount Calvary. We will display it so part of their church will be with our church. After I finished there were various dignitaries that spoke. While the village chief spoke on and on, an old man outside the window said something and Yakubu started to laugh. He told me the old man said  "You are not a pastor, you are not giving a sermon. Just sit down."


The Pastors' Wives spent about a half hour telling about how they have been working for many years to help start churches like Galadima. They had all the former leaders of the organization come to the front to thank them for their leadership and years of service to the church. The pastor in the center is the wife of the pastor at Pella. Her church is not far from Pella near Hong. At the end of their presentation the leader looked at me and told me that the Pastors' Wives do a lot of evangelism. But their biggest problem is the lack of transportation. They have to hire buses (vans) and drivers whenever they go out for evangelism. If this had been a different setting I would have given them my Money Tree speech I give to people who think money grows on trees in America.

The Pastors' Wives had handed out presents to various people for their work in starting churches in Taraba State and the Bali Project. After a few more hymns and special numbers from the Pastors' Wives, the youth, and the Garba Chede Women's Fellowship the sermon was started.

Pastor Comfort Albert Pukuma provide the sermon with the local Catechist interpreting from Hausa to the local language Jirim. She is an impressive speaker and I did not understand much of what she said. But I could tell that she had the full attention of the church and everyone outside.She had a short sermon for an African pastor probably less than 45 minutes.

After the sermon and a hymn we had the offering where the basket or in this case a plastic tub was placed at the front of the church and the youth band sings while everyone files past and places their hands into the tub and releases what is in their hand. Today the attendance was close to one hundred and there were 1,000 Naira notes in the tub.

After the church service ended the drummers loaded into the back of the Hilux and several others for the ride back to Garba Chede. We dropped off Pastor Bunduku and our other passengers at Garba Chede except for two young girls who Yakubu told me he had been asked by one of the Pastors' Wives to drive them to Yola and meet her at the Cathedral where we were going anyway. She would meet us along the road and join us. I had assumed that they were her children but later I found out they were from Galadima and their parents had asked that they be taken to Adamawa, where they can go to school.  There was also a young boy who was to go but he refused to leave fought to get out of the other vehicle he was in. One of the girls spoke Hausa and Yakubu could communicate with them. I bought peanuts at Garba Chede for snacks and gave them water to wash it down. We stopped in Jalingo the Capital of Taraba State and bought more water and some soda and crackers.

 We went a little off the main highway so I could photograph the church in Jalingo for their companion congregation Valley of Peace Lutheran in Golden Valley, Minnesota. While we were making this detour the vans with the woman who was going to meet us probably went through Jalingo on the main road. When we were a few kilometers outside of Yola the lady called Yakubu and asked where he was. They were at the Cathedral and never saw us on the road. We delivered the girls to her about 15 minutes later. I certainly hope that these girls will thrive in their new home in the Hong area of Adamawa. They slept much of the ride or talked and looked out the windows. They still had an overnight stay in a guest house and then a few more hours of driving to their new home.

Trip to Bali & Gashaka-Gumti National Park

Yakubu and I had been invited to go to Bali to attend the dedication of the Galadima Church Building. We left Friday at Noon after getting the oil changed and buying diesel fuel for the Hilux. We stopped for lunch at Twin Sister's Restaurant in Mayo Belwa. The next stretch of road to the Taraba State Border is pitted with pot holes. The Federal Road Maintenance Agency is working slowly on this section of road. In some areas they are removing the whole pavement and installing a new section. Mostly they are digging out the potholes and filling in the area. The digging is a few days ahead of the filling. You do not want to drive this section at night.

Historically, the worst road is the Jalingo to Bali Road. Most people have not taken that road and take a much longer but faster way. This road is almost completely reconstructed with the a wide two lanes, wide shoulders and new bridges. In total what took me 6 1/2 hours in 2010 only took 5 hours. Back in the 1990's that was all day drive. When the Mayo Belwa to the Taraba State border is fixed the trip will be under 5 hours.

We arrived at Bali in time to take a few pictures of the reconstructed Mount Calvary Church and visit with Pastor Bunduku the coordinator for the Bali Project. The Bali Project is a companion church project of Mount Calvary Lutheran Church of Excelsior, Minnesota and the Jimeta Cathedral. Mount Calvary provides about 2/3 of the project funding while Cathedral provides the management and the remaining funding. These two churches have been working together for almost 20 years. The Bali Project provides missionaries called Aikakke or the plural Aikakku. These missionaries have bible college diploma as evangelist or catechist. The Catechist have one more year of training. While in Bible school their wives also attend training and will work with the women of the village. The Aikakku are assigned to remote villages in the region around the town of Bali in Taraba State. Currently, there are 23 Aikakku and Pastor Bunduku. Pastor Bunduku reached retirement age in December of 2011. He agreed to continue working for one more year while the Cathedral Bali Committee worked on his replacement. I will now retire at the end of the month. The decision of how to replace him is not  yet complete.

I have always wanted to see if Gashaka-Gumti National Park and Game Reserve would be an alternate to going to Yankari National Park for the people making companion trips. We asked Pastor Bunduku if he had plans for us to visit any Aikakku on Saturday. He did not so we suggested that we go investigate Gashaka-Gumti. The road to the park proved to be worst road of the trip. The 90 kilometer drive took 2 hours (28 miles per hour average).

Along the road Yakubu noticed that the thatch roofs round houses were different than he had ever seen. The sticks that support the thatch was sticking out at the peak like a teepee. When saw a man working on his roof we stopped and photographed him and his wife.


When we arrived in Serti we first saw a sign for the park and turned in. It turned out to be the Staff Quarters for the park. We stopped and asked one man where we should go to find out information about he park and he directed us down the road another kilometer. It turns out he was the director of the park. About two kilometers down the road we found the Camper Lodge. This is where some people will stay outside the park and drive in each day. They had a reception, restaurant, four different types of cabins (most with 1 double bed and a few for drivers with a single bed). The most expensive was only $3,450 ($22). We did not see the rooms. We sat in the restaurant with the manager (David) and discussed the features of the park. We ordered lunch of rice and vegetables with chicken. Then we found out the chicken would take time so we changed to just rice and vegetables. As we were discussing the options for touring the park David suggested that we could take a short hour and 1/2 trip into the park to see some views, some places where anglers come to fish and maybe some animals. This time of day most of the animals have gone back into the shadier bush to get out of the sun. The best time is early morning when the animals come to the river for water. He asked one of the workers to work up a price for a short tour. The price worked out to 3,700 Naira ($24). We thought this was quite reasonable and told the kitchen to add the chicken back into our meals and we would have lunch after we returned. This sign was on the side of the registration building. The tour does not include transportation and giving your guide a little money for his efforts. David put on a Safari vest and become out guide for the afternoon.

The park entrance was a few more kilometers down the road just outside of Serti. The park is actually very large with 6,731 square kilometer. The northern edge starts in Adamawa State with savannah, woodlands and swamps. The Adamawa area has the lions and other savannah species. The center section where we are is higher up and is more open woodlands and savannah woodlands with more primates. About 45 kilometers in is Gashaka Village where there is camping buildings. This is a true camp. You bring in your own food and cook. It is mostly used by researchers, students from all over Nigeria and Europe. Also sports fisherman will base out of the camp and go to various rivers and streams. We will only be going into the park as far as the first Hippo Pool on the Mayo Kam River. As you go further into the park you get into mountains where only there are only jeep paths for the rangers on their anti poaching patrols and foot paths.

 Our first stop after going down a steep valley and having to use 4 wheel drive to get back up the other side was an overlook of the park to the north. From here you can see to the rolling hills of the Gumti sector of the park in Adamawa State.




 Next we stopped at the Mayo Kam River bridge crossing. This wooden bridge is removed before the rainy season and replaced each December. The rains have already begun here but they are few and far between. They will get going in earnest in by late April and early May and continue into November. You can see the remains of the old steel bridge.

A little further up the road we stopped at the first fishing area on the Mayo Kam. The pools are cut through granite. Schools of fish about a foot or more in length can be seen cruising through the shallow waters with larger fish breaking the surface in deeper areas. We spent close to a half hour climbing the granite boulders and moving up stream to more pools. These are the breeding grounds for much of the fish of the rivers feeding the Benue River.

Pastor Buduku found a pothole made by a grinding stone spinning around on the granite. I found the remains of a larger one a few meter further upstream.









We continued upstream to the Hippo pool area. As we drove in we saw a waterbuck but I was too slow with the camera from the wrong side of the truck. At the Hippo pond area of the Mayo Kam River we saw one Hippo we seemed most disinterested in us.

On our way out of the park we had a babbon run across the road in front of us and then a mother with a baby on her back drop out of a tree next to the truck and run away. I caught a picture of the male babbon on the ridge not far from our truck.




Back at the Serti Camp we had lunch and were surprised that it started with a rice and vegetable cream soup, followed by rice with vegetable soup and they had fried up three chickens. There was way too much food. We shared the chicken with David and after they brought out a fruit salad. All of this in addition to the minerals we had earlier and 20 sachets of water we had taken on the tour with us came to only $3710 Naria ($24) for the three of us and we took chicken back to Bali with us.

The Governor and now the Acting Governor have both said that the rebuilding of the road to the park is a priority for Taraba State. If this road is finished this will be a nice destination for visitors to Taraba State. I mentioned earlier that Taraba State the rainy season starts earlier and ends later than in Adamawa. The Parks "Closed Season" is May to mid December. We also found that is true for the Bali Project. By late May and  until early December you cannot visit most of the locations where the Aikakku are posted.

As we entered Bali just as it was getting dark a man on a motorcycle yelled to Yakubu that his tire was flat. The back right tire had hit one too many potholes and the inner tube and given up. We happened to be just in the area where vulcanizers (tire repairmen) were set up. We pulled over and the vulcanizer said put on the spare and he will have our tire ready in the morning. Yakubu looked for the tool to unlock the spare tire from under the truck and remembered that one of the drivers had borrowed it for another truck that was going into the bush and had not returned it. The vulcanizer said he would repair it while we waited.  He pressed a patch onto the tube and then lit a fire a cup on the press and protected the rest of the tire with sand. It took about 20 minutes for the fire to burn out and the press to cool down enough to remove.

I am posting this without reading it a second time. I am on the Church generator power and it will not last much longer tonight. My little generator is about out of fuel. I have three days left.